1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to techniques for preventing data leakage and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for modifying a carrier to disrupt secret message transmission and prevent data leakage that is facilitated by steganography.
2. Description of the Related Art
Content (e.g., images, sound, video, and the like) has become popular within the Internet community. The proliferation of the multimedia content, however, has paved a way for data leakage problems within organizations (e.g., corporations, government agencies, universities and/or the like). For example, steganography involves the use of various forms of the content as carriers to leak data (e.g., engineering specifications, blueprints, financial information, privileged information, structural designs, source code, trade secrets, formulae, defense plans and the like). In steganography, the hidden data or message is merged with the content data (e.g., pixel values, motion vectors, audio data, color information, coefficients and/or the like).
Sometimes, the carrier includes data (e.g., redundant bits) on which a sequence of bits (i.e., hidden data) may be transmitted with little or no chance of detection and without a noticeable loss in perceptual quality (i.e., most human cannot pickup certain differences in luminance and color). In an image, for example, one or more less significant bits of time domain samples or transform domain coefficients may be used to transmit the hidden data. Similarly, redundant audio data may also be used to leak data. Sometimes, the carrier may be transmitted as an attachment to an inconspicuous message from the organization to an external computing device.
Occasionally, a person (e.g., a hacker, a disgruntled employee of the organization and/or the like) utilizes a steganographic technique to leak the confidential data. During a phishing attack, hackers may utilize steganography to embed the stolen credentials in the multimedia content and publish it on public bulletin boards to evade detection. Furthermore, terrorists may hide information in the multimedia content by utilizing steganography for communication.
Current steganographic techniques replace one or more portions of the content data with the confidential data. Such steganographic techniques use one or more less significant bits of time domain or coefficient of transform domain as carrier to hide data. However, current statistical and artificial intelligence based steganography detection techniques are computationally expensive. In addition, the current steganography detection techniques have a high rate of false positives which limits the usefulness of such detection techniques within enterprise Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) solutions.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for preventing data leakage caused by a steganographic technique.